Eat First

This is a «hidden gem».
I just moved to the area one evening and stopped by my Chase bank. I noticed the place, small and cozy, and thought I’d give it a try.
I ordered the chicken and pea pod dish, rice, and the two egg rolls. It was great. Chicken and pea pods could have used a SLIGHT bit more flavor, but was otherwise fantastic. Good quality and quality. The egg rolls were also great. Lots of filling and for a great price.
The place is more of a take out or delivery, but has about five tables, and a bar like area for about six people.
The owners were friendly, and food was prepared quickly. Despite being busy with take out orders and delivery, only waited about 15 minutes on a Thursday evening. L If only more Chinese places in Chicago were like this.

This is the kind of small strip-​mall Chinese joint that it’s easy to make fun of, especially with that hilarious name. That’s why we didn’t go there for a while, since we’re kinda surrounded by crummy Chinese joints in our neighborhood. But damned if Eat First isn’t pretty good! The food is well-​prepared, tasty, and inexpensive; nothing is spectacular, but nothing is bad, either. The fruit smoothies are actually really good and reasonably priced. If you want reliable, quick, and very decent Chinese — and, come on, lazy urbanites, you know you do, at least once a month — then you could do a lot worse than Eat First.

Just had a great delivery experience. Everything was hot and tasty. If you are vegetarian try the veggie egg rolls they are bomb!!! Will order again.

Great Chinese take out. Delivered promptly and the pricing is fair. Perfect for a night in, will definitely recommend

Love this place. Lunch is always good. Placed an ordered via phone they are on top of their game when it comes to service. Food is better than most in this area. Mic ducks and eat first is about all there is around here unless someone else knows of a place.

First and last time experience ordering from this place. I ordered the General Tso’s Chicken, BBQ Chicken and Crab Rangoon. The «chicken» was questionable and had an oddly chewy texture to it, couldn’t even taste the meat. I also feel like Crab Rangoon is 9 out of 10 times delicious from anywhere you get it. Somehow, Eat First even messed their Crab Rangoon up too.
Not only am I at a loss of $ 25.45 but I’ve also lost the taste/​craving for Chinese food for a long time. Save your money, save your time and save your taste buds. Go with literally any other Chinese place, anywhere.

Yeah, so I popped in the place the other day after an especially gruesome day of work to get some Chinese to drown my sorrows. When I walked up to the counter there was a guy in the back speaking Chinese to the man at the counter, and they were conducting a conversation just staring at me and the guy at the counter didn’t say hello or anything, they both just sort of stared… And I was like «Hi…»
So from here: ordered a large chicken fried rice and some egg rolls. They came out promptly, brought them home and… Well, I’m definitely not a chinese food buff by any means, frankly in college I ate a ton of Chinese Yum Yum, aka Chinese open til 6 AM so I’m certainly not a huge stickler for quality unless something is noticeably very, very bad. My chicken in my rice looked gray, and when I tasted it I wasn’t even sure it was chicken. It could have been some really old dark meat or something, but it was absolutely disgusting. I picked all of the chicken out of my chicken fried rice and threw it away, which was a shame for obvious reasons but also because the rice wasn’t bad. Nice, greasy soy saucy rice is a-​ok with me, but not this gross chicken.
I had the egg rolls too and there was some off taste about them. I’m not sure what, I couldn’t put my finger on it but something tasted weird. I don’t know if its the cabbage mix or what. Either way… It’s up in the air if I’ll be here again. I’ve either learned my lesson in trying to order chicken and gonna stick to veggie FR or I’m not going to pay more good money for gray meat.

great lunch speacials and OK costumer service. eggrolls might need some improvement but a good place overall.

Chinese food is my comfort craving food. There are times I just neeeeeed it. I’m still in search of an amazing spot in my new ‘hood but Eat First is a completely acceptable option for the deep fried, ooey gooey American style Chinese food.
Their eggrolls are kind of mini sized but they are decent. Same goes for the sweet & sour chicken… there’s about 5 times as much rice as there is main dish. However it’s not packed full of tons of vegetables which is a plus for me.
They do seem to enjoy MSG. I had a bit of a food coma post binging.

I’m not too sure what to think of eat first. Sometimes I order fried rice and I am very ease with all its tastiness, sometimes not so much. Same goes for the smoothies, the first few I got were juicy and tasty and brought me back for more but then the next few were pretty gross and thrown away free a few sips.

I’m surprised grubhub doesn’t offer this as my only option because it’s all i order.
6 piece wing all day MUFUGAZ

I love everything about this place! The food, the prices, and the staff! Great food at reasonable prices. They don’t skimp on anything! Plenty of meat, plenty of rice, plenty of everything. Always hot, always fast! I can never badmouth this place. Delivery and carry-​out available. Near the Belmont Blue Line stop. Quick and easy to get something for dinner, on the run, or sit down and eat. They have 3 booths and a couple bar stools but that’s it. No bathroom. It’s really more of a carry-​out place.

Ordered delivery from this location for a night in with my roommate. Between the two of us, we shared the kung pao chicken and broccoli beef. They were pretty quick to take my order and said that it would be delivered shortly since it is just down the street from us.
When the food arrived we were very eager to eat since we ere both very hungry. I dont know why we were just craving some good ol americanized Chinese food. With the amount of Chinese buffets in the area, one could actually eat at the buffets for the same price. We were too lazy to walk to one though so…
First thing I noticed when opening the boxes, was the amount of oil they used. It literally looked like a layer of oil slicked over the top shiny and glistening. The fried rice was also so dark, I could tell they used tons of soy sauce. Upon eating the food, we were very disappointed. Salty tons of msg and just not well prepared. The egg rolls were harder than rocks.
Don’t think we will be ordering from this establishment again.

It’s your standard hole-​in-​the-​wall Chinese spot. I haven’t frequented it too much, though.
Shrimp Egg Foo Young — It’s okay. passable. nothing special, but not bad.
Fried Rice — it’s okay. Again. nothing special, but not bad.
Fried Shrimp ball — I was craving Shrimp toast (from #1 Chop Suey) and tried this as an alternative… DON“T GET IT. too salty.
On a most recent order…
Shrimp lo mein with extra shrimp. Tasty, saucy, on point. Big butterflied shrimp. I’d order it again, but geez. $ 3 for extra shrimp when the dish itsself was $ 8 seemed kinda much to me.
Smoothies:
I’ve tried the mango, and it does taste fresh!
Overall: I’m sure I’ll order again, but I think i need more absolute wins in order to gain it another star. The interior seems all business. I’d only order here for lunch, though. *shrug* i just think it’s affordable and gets to the point, but not a place I would look forward to. In the area, I’d still prefer #1 Chop Suey.

SAFETY CAUTION: younger cashier handles money while handling fresh fruits for drinks– doesn’t wash hands or wear gloves. She’s so very rude.
Food’s good though. Just pray you don’t get salmonella or giardia.
Sometimes, lack of sanitation trumps good food.

Great value! Fast and friendly delivery. I have done carry out and delivery and always enjoy. The crab Rangoon is the best in the neighborhood. Also love their shakes!

Our favorite Chinese food! Their combination fried rice is absolutely delicious! Egg rolls and crab rangoons are really really good!

This place has a bunch of vegetarian options and the staff is very friendly and helpful. Every time I’ve wanted to sub something out or modify my dish, they’ve been totally on board with it. The portions are great. The food is decent (not incredible or anything) and it’s reasonably priced, but the customer service really bumps this place up to 4 stars.

I decided to stop here after work one evening since it is on my way home.
Seemed pretty standard on the inside. Not busy at all.
I went ahead and ordered the chicken and rice soup. It took about 10 – 15 minutes to get my order. When I got home, I was thoroughly unimpressed.
Upon opening the container, the aroma had an air of that «canned» smell. It had one piece of a green onion on top of it and the chicken didn’t look quite right. Most pieces looked almost mechanically cut (each piece was cubed and smooth) and many of the pieces were a mix of light and dark meat. What looked like veins were present on some of the pieces (did not eat those).
I went ahead and tried it. The best way to describe the feeling of the chicken was spongy. The broth (along with the chicken) was extremely bland. The rice was fine and seemed to be cooked well. With about half of the pieces of chicken I ate, I noticed a hard piece of something (hopefully bone, otherwise I have no idea what it was) after taking a bite. Naturally, I did not eat those pieces.
Not too long after, I became violently ill. Since I hadn’t eaten anything about 6 hours before the soup (and the thing that I ate was prepackaged and dry), I’m going to assume it was food poisoning from Eat First.
I would never recommend this place to anyone.
As a bonus, I’d like to go ahead and share with everyone what I noticed during their process for making smoothies. I didn’t order one, but I saw a few being made while I waited.
I can’t say how they prepared the fruit or how much fruit was used, but I did see a hefty dose of syrup added (ladled into the blender from a small, counter-​top bucket) for each smoothie made. Make your own assumptions, but I believe that this would make the smoothies pretty unhealthy.

It is a divy place after bring dropped off at the L Station. Hungry for Chinese Ma Po Tofu (This is a true test dish on chef’s culinary skill because tofu is totally tasteless so it is like giving them the blank piece of paper and show us what you can do). To my surprise, they delivered with splendid color that rival high end Chinese Restaurant that caters to Asians. I would have give a 5 star if it is a full service eatery but it is strictly counter service with few benches. Great for food on the run.